Lost
by livingwithmuggles
Summary: You define yourself by who you love, who you want to be, who you hate, who you grow to be. So when you've lost all that, when you're alone, when you've lost our way, you've lost yourself. The death of a legacy through Remus Lupin.


You define yourself by who you love, who you want to be, who you hate, who you grow to be.

You define yourself by where you live, what you do, the people around you, the culture you immerse yourself in.

So when you've lost all that, when you're alone, when you've lost our way, you've lost yourself.

You're lost, and this time, you can't be found.

No one but you knows who you are, no one but you can decide if you're really there. Sure, people have their suspicions, their rumors. They don't know though, they guess.

Guesses can't hurt you, but they can't save you either.

You once knew who you were, you knew where you wanted to go, who you wanted to be. Everywhere you went, you knew where you were. Now, you run, you escape, you travel places most people have never dreamed of going.

Someone once asked you where you were.

You couldn't answer.

That's when the guesses started.

You look around yourself, to the shredded wallpaper, to the tattered, worn down chair. You smell the faint musky scent. The scent of ages past, ages you left long ago, ages that you would never return to.

It always hurts to be the last of something, to know that you're the last one left. It hurts to know that when you leave, a legacy leaves with you. It hurts. It's frightening, disturbing, unstoppable.

It hurts to know that you'll never feel that love again.

You see the memories flash across your eyes. You see the forgotten smiles, the winks, the subtle nods. You see the pure innocence of their faces. You see no pain, no fear. You see only children, children that will have their whole lives destroyed in a few years, months, days.

Those children, those friends, they told you who you were, they made you who you used to be. You defied rules, stereotypes, laws, rumors. You defied the world. There're some types of love, of friendship, that can only be broken by death, you knew that. You never took it literally.

You never knew that someday each of you would be gone. You never knew that death truly would destroy something so powerful, turn you against each other, friend on friend, brother on brother. It tore you apart, and even with only one of you gone, the rest of you had already forgotten the promises you made.

You remember taking to him, in the dark, old, abandoned house, reminiscing of old conversations, adventures. It's so hard to realize that there were four of you back then, and to realize that one of you is dead. It's hard to realize that you'll never look into his eyes again, never hear his laugh, never see his grin.

It's so hard to realize, but you still do. You both do.

With the realization, another truth dawns, that you don't know who this man is anymore, you have all the memories, yet he is so unfamiliar. A stranger in a broken shell.

You both know it, neither of you say the simple fact, but it lingers in the air. It hangs above your heads, a hurricane.

When he dies, merely months later, the pain isn't fresh, its opening an old wound, because you had already lost him once.

You don't know when the traitor died, but you feel it in your bones, a hidden loss, barely there, but you know he's gone.

They're all gone.

As you sit in the ruined shack, you finally break, you snap. You feel the pain, and it _burns_ you. It tears open your heart, your soul. It rips apart your dreams, your future.

You don't know how, or why. You don't know when, but you know you're going to die today.

It terrifies you, not the knowledge that soon you will be dead, but the knowledge that soon, all of you will be dead.

You're keeping them alive. When he first died, you all died.

While you live, so do they.

It's time, though. It's time for the legacy to die, for you to become one again. It's time to let go of reality, and embrace what you already know, what you've been trying to hide, what you think you've always known.

You leave, and you accept the truth.

You don't know who you are.

You're lost.


End file.
